Up until now, the minimum age for marriage was 16, although parental consent was required if the couple were between 16 and 18 years old.

At the end of February, the Assembly of the Republic increased the minimum age for a young person to marry to 18 years and removed references to emancipation from several articles of legislation.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has today promulgated the decree of the Assembly of the Republic that prohibits the marriage of minors and includes child, early or forced marriage in the set of dangerous situations that legitimize intervention to promote the rights and protection of children and young people in danger, amending the Civil Code, the Civil Registry Code and the Law on the Protection of Children and Young People in Danger.

The decree was voted on 20 February, in parliament, and was approved with votes against from the PSD, IL and CDS-PP and is the result of bills from the Left Bloc (BE) and the People-Animals-Nature party (PAN), approved in general terms on January 31st, in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees.

The document includes a transitional rule, which indicates that “marriages of persons over 16 and under 18 years of age legally performed before the entry into force of this law, as well as the emancipation of minors resulting from them, remain valid and, until both spouses reach the age of majority, continue to be governed by the rules amended or revoked by this law”.

Regarding the Protection of Children and Young Persons at Risk Act, parliament decided to add child marriage to the list of cases that provide for intervention.

The law states that “a child, early or forced marriage, or similar union, is understood to be any situation in which someone under the age of 18 lives with another person in conditions similar to those of spouses, whether or not they have been forced into such a union, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or national origin”.